Iraqi forces pound ISIL targets in Tikrit

As siege continues, mortars and rockets used against remaining ISIL fighters in city's centre.

14 Mar 2015 02:49 GMT

The advance by government troops and allied forces into Tikrit has been hampered by bombs and sniper fire [EPA]

Iraqi forces have pounded central areas of Tikrit where several hundred fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group are holding out, officials said.

On Friday, Iraqi troops - backed by Shia militia - fought fierce battles to secure the northern neighbourhood of Qadisiyya and lobbed mortars and rockets into the city centre, which is still in the hands of ISIL.

Thousands of fighters surrounded a few hundred holdout ISIL fighters, pounding their positions from the air but treading carefully to avoid the thousands of bombs littering the city centre.

Two days after units spearheading Baghdad's biggest anti-ISIL operation yet pushed deep into Tikrit, a police colonel claimed around 50 percent of the city was now back in government hands.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan analyses the battle for Tikrit

"We are surrounding the gunmen in the city centre. We're advancing slowly due to the great number of IEDs [improvised explosive devices]," he told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.

"We estimate there are 10,000 IEDs in the city," he said.

The offensive to recapture Tikrit is seen as a key step towards dislodging ISIL, which seized much of northern and western Iraq last year and controls about a third of Iraq and Syria.